Hollywood heads for its worst summer box office in a decade 1 1

[jaybuck43]

On 8/14/2017 at 9:55 AM, ComicConnoisseur said:

It seems Hollywood lost touch of what people wanted. Looking at next year's schedule it could be worst. A lot CGI junk ahead,plus no Wonder Woman or GotG 2 to save them.

Here's the problem.  Summer mean's nothing anymore.  The article is written like junk.  The studios a few years ago started expanding beyond the summer.  Now you have major releases occurring as early as March, and as late as December.  Would Disney have released Star Wars in December 10 years ago?  Absolutely not.  (A New Hope came out on May 25th, Empire came out May 21st, Return of the Jedi came out May 25th, Phantom Menace came out May 19th, Attack of the Clones May 16th, and Revenge of the Sith came out May 19th.  Meanwhile the "new" star wars came out December 18th and Rouge One came out December 10th, and The Last Jedi is coming out December 15th).  Already, box office this year is at $7.18 Billion.  It is on pace to hit $11 billion and probably will be the highest box office in history.  Don't forget, we have Kingsman the Golden Circle, Blade Runner 2049, Thor:Ragnarock, Justice League, Star Wars The Last Jedi, and Jumanji 2: This Time the Rock is in it (my personal title) all coming out after the summer period.  In previous years these would have ALL been summer tent pole films.  Now?  They can be put anywhere.  

[Drummy]

I agree with that logic.  The only thing that matters is the 2017 haul, or the 2018 haul.  The only months seemingly immune to a big movie are January and February anymore.

Dan

[ComicConnoisseur]

2 hours ago, jaybuck43 said:

Here's the problem.  Summer mean's nothing anymore.  The article is written like junk.  The studios a few years ago started expanding beyond the summer.  Now you have major releases occurring as early as March, and as late as December.  Would Disney have released Star Wars in December 10 years ago?  Absolutely not.  (A New Hope came out on May 25th, Empire came out May 21st, Return of the Jedi came out May 25th, Phantom Menace came out May 19th, Attack of the Clones May 16th, and Revenge of the Sith came out May 19th.  Meanwhile the "new" star wars came out December 18th and Rouge One came out December 10th, and The Last Jedi is coming out December 15th).  Already, box office this year is at $7.18 Billion.  It is on pace to hit $11 billion and probably will be the highest box office in history.  Don't forget, we have Kingsman the Golden Circle, Blade Runner 2049, Thor:Ragnarock, Justice League, Star Wars The Last Jedi, and Jumanji 2: This Time the Rock is in it (my personal title) all coming out after the summer period.  In previous years these would have ALL been summer tent pole films.  Now?  They can be put anywhere.  

3

Of these movies mentioned I only expect Thor and Star Wars to deliver up to expectations at the box office.

Edited August 15, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[NewEnglandGothic]

17 hours ago, Martin Sinescu said:

Also, NEG, nice anecdote with Cruel Intentions  No matter how bad that movie sounded on paper, I would've hiked uphill in the snow both ways for SMG and Reese....  

Don't forget Selma (Blair)!  

I always remember all my snowstorm movies. The absolute worse being '97 Scream 2 (I was all over the road,) '98 Sphere (WTF was I thinking  ) and '03's Daredevil (it was a blizzard.)

[Gatsby77]

5 hours ago, jaybuck43 said:

Here's the problem.  Summer mean's nothing anymore.  The article is written like junk.  The studios a few years ago started expanding beyond the summer.  Now you have major releases occurring as early as March, and as late as December.  Would Disney have released Star Wars in December 10 years ago?  Absolutely not.  (A New Hope came out on May 25th, Empire came out May 21st, Return of the Jedi came out May 25th, Phantom Menace came out May 19th, Attack of the Clones May 16th, and Revenge of the Sith came out May 19th.  Meanwhile the "new" star wars came out December 18th and Rouge One came out December 10th, and The Last Jedi is coming out December 15th).  Already, box office this year is at $7.18 Billion.  It is on pace to hit $11 billion and probably will be the highest box office in history.  Don't forget, we have Kingsman the Golden Circle, Blade Runner 2049, Thor:Ragnarock, Justice League, Star Wars The Last Jedi, and Jumanji 2: This Time the Rock is in it (my personal title) all coming out after the summer period.  In previous years these would have ALL been summer tent pole films.  Now?  They can be put anywhere.  

This.

Exactly this. The reboots and sequels _do_ work, but the issue is that formerly  "summer tentpole" releases come out literally every week or two now. The market can't support them all, so the bad ones crash and a few good ones (Planet of the Apes 3) get overlooked.

And I had to be very careful in my "summer movie" analysis earlier because it's hard to argue that Fate of the Furious was a summer movie when it came out in mid-April.

But it arguably kicked off the "summer tentpole" season.

And for the record -- Beauty & the Beast is indeed a reboot. And explaining away the Marvel superhero films as "exceptions" doesn't help.

It's there in black and white - 4 of the top 5 biggest movies of the year so far are reboots and sequels -- Wonder Woman stands alone. So Hollywood has literally _every_ incentive to continuing producing them.

More interesting is that the # 1 movie of the year will likely (again) be a Star Wars sequel, yet released in December. As Jaybuck notes, that is as much as "summer movie" as Blade Runner or Fate of the Furious.

[reddwarf666222]

18 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

This.

Exactly this. The reboots and sequels _do_ work, but the issue is that formerly  "summer tentpole" releases come out literally every week or two now. The market can't support them all, so the bad ones crash and a few good ones (Planet of the Apes 3) get overlooked.

And I had to be very careful in my "summer movie" analysis earlier because it's hard to argue that Fate of the Furious was a summer movie when it came out in mid-April.

But it arguably kicked off the "summer tentpole" season.

And for the record -- Beauty & the Beast is indeed a reboot. And explaining away the Marvel superhero films as "exceptions" doesn't help.

It's there in black and white - 4 of the top 5 biggest movies of the year so far are reboots and sequels -- Wonder Woman stands alone. So Hollywood has literally _every_ incentive to continuing producing them.

More interesting is that the # 1 movie of the year will likely (again) be a Star Wars sequel, yet released in December. As Jaybuck notes, that is as much as "summer movie" as Blade Runner or Fate of the Furious.

Beauty and the Beast falls into a special category of film that gets an exception and if you remove the Marvel/Star Wars films from the equation. Wonder Woman is the only film performing at or above expectations. The other reboots and sequels are underperforming across the board.

Its not that the market can't handle it. The market can't handle mediocre films that is all glitz. We have seen the special effects and they are nothing special now. We are bored as Movie goers who want good writing.

And if you don't see that the reboots and sequels are the problemthen you are apart of the problem and naive  of the Hollywood domestic bubble that is going to pop any moment 

[Gatsby77]

17 minutes ago, reddwarf666222 said:

Beauty and the Beast falls into a special category of film that gets an exception and if you remove the Marvel/Star Wars films from the equation. Wonder Woman is the only film performing at or above expectations. The other reboots and sequels are underperforming across the board.

Its not that the market can't handle it. The market can't handle mediocre films that is all glitz. We have seen the special effects and they are nothing special now. We are bored as Movie goers who want good writing.

And if you don't see that the reboots and sequels are the problemthen you are apart of the problem and naive  of the Hollywood domestic bubble that is going to pop any moment 

So you're literally exempting all Disney films (which captures Marvel/Star Wars/Beauty & the Beast) from your calculus?

That's idiotic.

Disney produced 4 of the top 5 of last year.

And guess what? Every one of them was a reboot or a sequel. They were:

Rogue One (# 1)

Finding Dory (# 2)

Captain America: Civil War (# 3)

The Jungle Book (# 5)

But back to this year.

 15 of the top 20 films of 2017 so far by worldwide gross were (all of which grossed more than $300 million+) were reboots or sequels.

Let's go deeper. Of the 11 films so far that have grossed more than $500 million worldwide, 10 have been reboots or sequels.

The literal lone exception among those 11 films is Wonder Woman.

So, as far as Hollywood is concerned, the formula works.

Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. Hollywood overwhelmingly produces reboots and sequels so they end up on top), but the reality is even original blockbusters like The Boss Baby and Dunkirk haven't come close to reaching the current top 10 films of the year. And at # 19, War for the Planet of the Apes (a sequel) was not only a better film but also made money, unlike vs. # 18, Matt Damon's folly of an original film, The Great Wall.

The data simply don't support what you're saying.

 

[NewEnglandGothic]

Why can't Wonder Woman be established as a sequel-follow-up (to Batman Vs Superman) or a reboot to Linda Carter's beloved 70's TV series?  

[jaybuck43]

1 hour ago, Gatsby77 said:

So you're literally exempting all Disney films (which captures Marvel/Star Wars/Beauty & the Beast) from your calculus?

That's idiotic.

Disney produced 4 of the top 5 of last year.

And guess what? Every one of them was a reboot or a sequel. They were:

Rogue One (# 1)

Finding Dory (# 2)

Captain America: Civil War (# 3)

The Jungle Book (# 5)

But back to this year.

 15 of the top 20 films of 2017 so far by worldwide gross were (all of which grossed more than $300 million+) were reboots or sequels.

Let's go deeper. Of the 11 films so far that have grossed more than $500 million worldwide, 10 have been reboots or sequels.

The literal lone exception among those 11 films is Wonder Woman.

So, as far as Hollywood is concerned, the formula works.

Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. Hollywood overwhelmingly produces reboots and sequels so they end up on top), but the reality is even original blockbusters like The Boss Baby and Dunkirk haven't come close to reaching the current top 10 films of the year. And at # 19, War for the Planet of the Apes (a sequel) was not only a better film but also made money, unlike vs. # 18, Matt Damon's folly of an original film, The Great Wall.

The data simply don't support what you're saying.

 

You're looking at Domestic.  Worldwide Gross, Disney had all 5 of the top grossing movies last year.  4 of the 5 were sequels/Reboots.  The 5th was Zootopia (which grossed $1.023 billion world wide)

[reddwarf666222]

1 hour ago, Gatsby77 said:

So you're literally exempting all Disney films (which captures Marvel/Star Wars/Beauty & the Beast) from your calculus?

That's idiotic.

Disney produced 4 of the top 5 of last year.

And guess what? Every one of them was a reboot or a sequel. They were:

Rogue One (# 1)

Finding Dory (# 2)

Captain America: Civil War (# 3)

The Jungle Book (# 5)

But back to this year.

 15 of the top 20 films of 2017 so far by worldwide gross were (all of which grossed more than $300 million+) were reboots or sequels.

Let's go deeper. Of the 11 films so far that have grossed more than $500 million worldwide, 10 have been reboots or sequels.

The literal lone exception among those 11 films is Wonder Woman.

So, as far as Hollywood is concerned, the formula works.

Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. Hollywood overwhelmingly produces reboots and sequels so they end up on top), but the reality is even original blockbusters like The Boss Baby and Dunkirk haven't come close to reaching the current top 10 films of the year. And at # 19, War for the Planet of the Apes (a sequel) was not only a better film but also made money, unlike vs. # 18, Matt Damon's folly of an original film, The Great Wall.

The data simply don't support what you're saying.

 

Hmm what kind of kool-aid are you drinking? Oh wait the studio Kool-Aid to make excuses.

One studio is having domestic success with reboots and that is Disney. All the other studios sequels/reboots are doing less than expected and less than the previous film in the series. It is a disaster year for big budget films outside of Wonder Woman and properties owned by Disney.

Plenty of indie films are setting records for studios this year. The top ten doesn't matter if you can't rake in the money domestically to help cover costs because at some point the foreign market will get use to the eye candy and stop going as well. It's the Hollywood Bubble that is going to pop anytime now and a bunch of studios will go bankrupt and up for sale.

So your logic would make me homeless.

 

[Martin Sinescu]

6 hours ago, NewEnglandGothic said:

Don't forget Selma (Blair)!  

  Dang, you're right! Just soooo much eye candy in that movie.

[ComicConnoisseur]

10 hours ago, jaybuck43 said:

You're looking at Domestic.  Worldwide Gross, Disney had all 5 of the top grossing movies last year.  4 of the 5 were sequels/Reboots.  The 5th was Zootopia (which grossed $1.023 billion world wide)

So what happens if we take Disney away from the equation? It looks like Hollywood would have suffered much more at the box-office if it were not for Disney then.

[Gatsby77]

21 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

So what happens if we take Disney away from the equation? It looks like Hollywood would have suffered much more at the box-office if it were not for Disney then.

But that's the point - you _can't_ take Disney out of the equation to support the argument is "Hollywood is failing because it only does reboots and sequels." That'd be like taking Marvel out of the equation to support the argument "people don't like superhero movies."

Also, it was just two years ago that two studios dominated the blockbusters, not just one. In 2015 Disney had the # 1, 3 and 4 films, but Universal had # 2, 5, and 6.

More than that, Universal not only topped $1 billion in yearly revenue faster than any studio in history that year, it became the first studio ever to top $1 billion each worldwide for three separate movies.

I'm pretty sure that year, RedDwarf would have said "you can't count Disney or Universal."

And (going with the theme) 5 of the top 6 films of 2015 were reboots or sequels. Hell, 11 of the top 12 films were reboots or sequels. Inside Out (# 4) was the only original film. Then you had to go down to The Revenant at # 13.

 

It boils down to this: judging "summer movie releases" means nothing anymore because (for the third time) studios now release some of their heaviest hitters (from Fast & the Furious to Star Wars to Blade Runner to Thor) well outside of summer.

 

 

f people really wanted to see strong alternative fare like Atomic Blonde, it would have made more than $50 million in its first three weeks of release.

[1Cool]

I think this year is definitely a tipping point where people are avoiding the theater and instead spending entertainment money on streaming movies and Netflix.  Unless it's a huge movie with great buzz people would rather see it in 2 months on their couch for $4 rather then spend $30 for the family to go to the movie.

[ComicConnoisseur]

52 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I think this year is definitely a tipping point where people are avoiding the theater and instead spending entertainment money on streaming movies and Netflix.  Unless it's a huge movie with great buzz people would rather see it in 2 months on their couch for $4 rather then spend $30 for the family to go to the movie.

100 percent agree. This is the year where people are really starting to realize it is better to stream stuff at home on the large hdtv screen than blow $30 plus on CGI junk end of the world disaster movies.

I think next year the pendulum will swing even further towards this new mind-set.

[1Cool]

Just now, ComicConnoisseur said:

100 percent agree. This is the year where people are really starting to realize it is better to stream stuff at home on the large hdtv screen than blow $30 plus on CGI junk end of the world disaster movies.

I think next year the pendulum will swing even further towards this new mind-set.

Can't see any reason why it won't especially since I keep hearing the Millennials don't like to go on dates and prefer to just hang out at the house.  I'll looking into this new $10 deal for a months worth of movie tickets or else I know I'll be cutting way down from my typical 5 - 6 movies a month - too much cash and too many dud movies. 

[reddwarf666222]

6 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

But that's the point - you _can't_ take Disney out of the equation to support the argument is "Hollywood is failing because it only does reboots and sequels." That'd be like taking Marvel out of the equation to support the argument "people don't like superhero movies."

Also, it was just two years ago that two studios dominated the blockbusters, not just one. In 2015 Disney had the # 1, 3 and 4 films, but Universal had # 2, 5, and 6.

More than that, Universal not only topped $1 billion in yearly revenue faster than any studio in history that year, it became the first studio ever to top $1 billion each worldwide for three separate movies.

I'm pretty sure that year, RedDwarf would have said "you can't count Disney or Universal."

And (going with the theme) 5 of the top 6 films of 2015 were reboots or sequels. Hell, 11 of the top 12 films were reboots or sequels. Inside Out (# 4) was the only original film. Then you had to go down to The Revenant at # 13.

 

It boils down to this: judging "summer movie releases" means nothing anymore because (for the third time) studios now release some of their heaviest hitters (from Fast & the Furious to Star Wars to Blade Runner to Thor) well outside of summer.

 

 

f people really wanted to see strong alternative fare like Atomic Blonde, it would have made more than $50 million in its first three weeks of release.

The point is outside of one studio aka Disney the other studios are not having very much luck with reboots/sequels domestically. 90 percent of them are performing less than the film before domestically.

I can careless about international because that market will eventually die out once they get used to big budget films with special effects, streaming speeds catches up with us, and more outlets open to see the film. 

Most of these films can't make 2.5 to 3x the budget domestically. In fact most of these films are hitting 1x the budget or less domestically that is a recipe for disaster.

Yes we can remove Disney from the equation because they are what the other studios need to look at their model to be successful. Which is make sure certain films fall underneath certain labels and acquisition properties that they know have a proven track record to own them.

Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and more. Simply put the other studios just aren't doing their job and would take a long time to get the track record that Disney has from the model Michael Eisner left them with.

Eisner saved Paramount in the early 80s and Disney acquired him and saved them. At this point it's only a matter of time before Disney acquires MGM To own James Bond.

So yes you can subtract one studio from the one equation because it explains the marketplace for the rest. Who cares if most of the top ten are big budget films if they are underperforming and doing less than previous films in the series.

Your logic makes no sense and you need to look more at the numbers of budget vs domestic gross intake

Edited August 16, 2017 by reddwarf666222

[NewEnglandGothic]

 

[godzilla43]

Interesting to see how this summers bad ticket sale performance affect upcoming films. Wolf Warrior 2 has made almost 680 million in China alone. 

Edited August 19, 2017 by godzilla43

[reddwarf666222]

43 minutes ago, godzilla43 said:

Interesting to see how this summers bad ticket sale performance affect upcoming films. Wolf Warrior 2 has made almost 680 million in China alone. 

Wolf Warrior 2 is an example of how China will make their own films that resonate with them more an eventually the intake of Hollywood films will go down.